Supreme Court Page

With the end of school approaching, I would like to feature in this month’s column two Supreme Court programs designed to reach out to West Virginia students.

Many of you are probably familiar with the Supreme Court’s practice of holding a docket at the WVU College of Law in Morgantown. On March 21, the Court continued this tradition and heard oral arguments in six cases. After holding the regular session, the justices also judged the law school’s annual Baker Cup Moot Court competition, which also has become a regular law school and Supreme Court event.

When I was a student at the WVU College of Law, I had never seen the Supreme Court in session. Our visit to the law school is beneficial to law students, who may soon be appearing before us, because it allows them to see real lawyers argue real cases before the State’s highest court. Each year, we are very impressed by the caliber of the law students participating in the Baker Cup Competition, and the students we meet informally during our visit to the law school.

Another Supreme Court program, the LAWS project, is only in its second year, but also will become a Supreme Court tradition. LAWS, an acronym for Legal Advancement for West Virginia Students, is an innovative program developed by then-Chief Justice Robin Jean Davis during her term. LAWS is designed to educate high school students about the judicial branch of government by allowing them to actively observe the progression of an appellate case.

Approximately 344 high school students participated in the Supreme Court’s second annual LAWS project at the Harrison County Courthouse in Clarksburg on March 22. In 1999, the Supreme Court held the first LAWS in Beckley for 445 Raleigh County students.

As part of LAWS, students and their teachers attended oral arguments in one of four, actual Supreme Court cases. After the arguments, the students and their teachers met for a question and answer session with the attorneys whose argument they observed. All of the students and their teachers also joined the Supreme Court for a community-sponsored lunch.

The students had been studying the case they observed in advance of the arguments, and probably could have argued the case themselves. As part of LAWS, the Supreme Court sponsored a professional development session for teachers in January. Supreme Court staff provided teachers with notebooks of materials to use in their classrooms, including suggested activities and LAWS handbooks for each student. Volunteer Harrison County Bar members visited the classrooms to review the cases with the students. The Court will issue opinions in the cases before the end of school so students can discuss the opinions in class.

As the headline in an editorial in the Clarksburg Exponent-Telegram stated, the "Supreme Court’s LAWS program is a win-win situation." Students learn about the judicial process through active participation, and may even be inspired to pursue legal careers. All of the LAWS partners - the court system, the bar association, the schools, and the community- also are winners. Educating young West Virginians about the judicial branch of government will help produce future generations of well-informed, patriotic citizens.

On behalf of the Supreme Court, I’d like to thank all of our partners in the LAWS program and the WVU College of Law for helping us reach out to West Virginia students.

WV Supreme Court Chief Justice Maynard with Moot Court Baker Cup winner Treva Oxley, 2nd year law student at WVU College of Law from Huntington.  Photographer - Rory Perry